“I know that.”
It rattled him that she hadn’t argued. “Okay, so… If you go back to your apartment… I don’t know. That doesn’t feel safe to me. I don’t know why. Just a gut instinct thing. I have them sometimes. I’ve learned to listen to them.”
He stopped to take a breath and assess her mood before pushing forward with his advice. “I know you don’t want to do it, but I think you should quit working at the bar and spend a little of your inheritance to find another place to live and take care of yourself until this is over.”
Her eyes shimmered with unspent tears, but she sucked back her emotion with a hard sniff. “When will it be over?”
Not soon.
“You’re going to tell my father I’m in trouble, aren’t you?”
He had considered it, but he’d only told Lance Bowman that his daughter was alive and didn’t want anything to do with him. “He’s going to find out soon enough. Wouldn’t you rather tell him yourself?”
Nick’s phone vibrated. He yanked it from his belt and glared at the display. Petrie’s timing was immaculate, as always. “What?”
“I asked the forensic geek…” Petrie meant the computer expert. “To do an age progression on the photograph we found in the bum’s backpack like you asked.”
Nick waited. No need to prompt Petrie. He’d spill his surprise news when he thought the moment had ripened to maturity.
“Facial recognition matched your girl from the bar.”
Now, why in the hell had Petrie called Jerilyn his girl? He played dumb. “What girl from what bar?”
“The one that calls herself Olivia.” He paused for impact, no doubt. “I think it’s time you asked her what her real name is. Olivia Hammond died in Katrina.”
But of course Nick knew that. Time to redirect. “Okay. Well… Have you found out the identity of the photographer yet?” He needed to keep Petrie focused on finding the man. More and more, it seemed to Nick that the picture-taker was the key to solving the crime.
“He’s a ghost, Nick. Not a trace of him anywhere.”
Nick rubbed his tired eyes. “Okay, I want every cop in the Quarter… No, let’s expand it to all along the riverfront… I want every cop patrolling with a picture of this idiot in front of them.”
Petrie hesitated. Dear God, was Ed standing there listening again.
“You asked me to do that already. It’s out there. What are you asking?”
Had he? He didn’t remember. Nick had been distracted by Jerilyn’s escapades and investigating Les Wakefield. The Wakefield fraud case wasn’t even his, not even his jurisdiction. He’d done background on the guy for his friend Charlotte Soileau, because she’d gotten the idea the man was involved in a murder in St. Denis Parish, and she’d been told Wakefield lived in the New Orleans metro area. He’d found Wakefield and tailed him just as Charlotte had asked him to. To his surprise, he had followed Wakefield right into the bar where Jerilyn worked. Now, he was entangled in the Wakefield mess and couldn’t seem to untangle himself.
Yeah, he’d gotten sidetracked from the current investigation. He’d done favors for friends, and the distractions were messing with his job performance. Jane Doe’s murder was a case he had to solve, so he couldn’t afford any more distractions.
He returned his attention to Petrie, who was huffing and puffing on the other end of the call. Probably because he’d said something, and Nick hadn’t heard him…again.
“Right. Sorry. Okay…I’ll be in the office in about an hour.” Probably a lot longer. He disconnected the call without an ounce of remorse for his minor deception.
When he made it back to the office, there were a few things he had to do. It was time to bring his Uncle Ed in on his crazy Jerilyn Bowman experience. This was the kind of thing that could blow up in his face if he didn’t cover his butt. Ed would probably have a few sharp words of “friendly” advice for him that he wouldn’t want to take but that he’d have to follow. That might not be a bad thing. The load was getting a bit heavy for him to carry alone, and Nick didn’t think pulling his partner into the mess would be fair to Petrie.
Nick couldn’t ignore the photo of the little girl in Deville’s backpack, the little girl whose age-progressed face looked so much like Jerilyn. What if the old man’s death had something to do with Jerilyn’s family history? He should ask Ed to request a test to compare Jerilyn’s DNA to Sheldon Deville’s DNA. That wouldn’t be an easy sell without telling Ed everything. It might be even more difficult to get Jerilyn to give up a saliva sample willingly.
He caught and held her gaze.
She stuck her chin out and made her proclamation. “I’m not running away, and I sure the hell ain’t staying with you. And I’m not going back to Nashville. Take me home…to my place.”
There was no arguing. He didn’t have the authority to insist on relocation. “Sure. Okay. I’ll take you to your apartment, and you can get me the tube, but first, we’re stopping by the station. I want to get your fingerprints and a swab of your hands. It’s time.”
“Wait a minute. I’m not—”
“You need to do this, Jerilyn, to keep us both out of trouble because you showed up at a fire telling a fire captain a crazy story. You need to do whatever you can to prove you didn’t start that fire and that you weren’t ever inside that house. If you don’t do this, I’ll be forced to arrest you and bring you in for questioning.”
She hit him with an angry glare that quickly disintegrated into defeat. “Okay. Fine.”
He held back an outward expression of relief.
****
Jerilyn stood in front of the open shelves in her apartment. On the middle shelf was a collection of ornate pieces. Vials. Tubes. Cylinders. Chalices. Goblets. Most of them were crystal containers in silver bases. At least, that’s what Nick assumed they were made of. How much did he know about Gothic stuff?
Which one had belonged to Deville?
“Have you touched it since you put it there?”
She mumbled something that he took for a negative answer.
“I wanna double bag it. You got any more plastic bags?” Nick asked his question with an even tone while he kept an eye on her.
“Top drawer in the kitchen.” She muttered without shifting her gaze. “He gave it to me, you know. Left it where I could find it. He knew I couldn’t resist it.”
What was she talking about?
She finally turned toward him. “It fits right in with my collection as if he knew it would.”
Nick wasn’t convinced. “I thought you said Herb found it in the trash.”
“He did.”
“Then, how do you know he meant it for you and not for the landfill? If he wanted you to have it, why didn’t he put it in your hand or leave it on the bar?”
“He didn’t want just anyone to take it, so he put it where only me or Herb would find it. He knew it would appeal to me.” Her words flowed with confidence, as if she knew what she was talking about, as if she knew Deville’s mind.
That still didn’t answer why Deville hadn’t just handed it to her. “That’s kind of—”
“Farfetched? Is it any more farfetched than anything else I’ve seen or heard, Nick?”
The way she said his name sent a shiver of heat through him. No matter how her voice rumbled or squealed or rasped otherwise, no matter what other words she uttered, his name always fell from her lips soft and sweet and enticing, like she savored every consonant and vowel, like she wanted to savor him.
His body betrayed his mind again. He angled away from her so she wouldn’t note his rather obvious physical reaction.
He’d had numerous lusty thoughts about Jeri. He’d noticed the curve of her neck, the allure of her black-painted lips, the way the crazy color of her hair brought out the blue in her eyes. He’d wondered what she would look like without the Goth makeup. Without the Goth clothes.
He cleared his throat. “No, everything you say and do is sort of…out there.”
“Are y
ou saying I’m—”
“Different.”
“Is that good or bad?”
Oh, she had him there. How could he answer that question without pissing her off or revealing his attraction to her?
“Oh, you’re definitely special.”
He turned and rummaged in her kitchen drawer for the plastic bags. When he found them, he slipped two out of the box. He tucked the extra in his pocket and then turned to her with the other open and waiting for her to drop in the baggie-covered tube.
She sighed and released it into its second plastic cocoon.
A thump on the door grabbed both of their attention. In unison, they twisted toward the sound. Someone had slid a brown envelope under her door.
Jeri bent and reached for the package, but Nick stopped her. “Don’t touch it.”
She unbent and stared at the envelope that still had a bit of one corner caught under the damaged and partially missing weather stripping on the bottom of the door.
Nick’s stomach muscles tightened.
He backed up and ripped another plastic bag from the box. With his hand inside the bag, he lifted the envelope from the floor and took it to the small table pushed next to a wall. He undid the prongs and tipped the envelope so that the contents spilled out onto the tabletop. There appeared to be five pictures. All five had fallen out of the envelope with the unprocessed side up. He flipped them one at a time, careful to only touch them with the plastic bag.
When they were all turned, Jeri’s hand flew to her mouth. She gasped and backed away from the table, and tears formed in the corners of her eyes. Nick went to her, fearful that she might pass out. As soon as he was within several inches of her, she grabbed the top of his shoulder, bent over double, and gagged. He helped her to the curtain-enclosed toilet and stood outside while she retched.
She emerged from behind the curtain, her eyes wide, wiping her mouth with the bottom of her black shirt.
Jeri pointed at the photos on the table. “That’s her, isn’t it?”
He held her gaze and nodded.
“I told you he likes to take pictures.”
Five black and white photos of Jane Doe taken from different perspectives with different lighting. The woman’s frightened eyes were wide open. Jane Doe wasn’t dead yet when the photographer took the photos.
Nick’s stomach turned.
He struggled to regain his composure because he had to be the strong one. It was his job.
“Is she the woman in your vision?” He asked the question as if all his doubts about her psychic abilities had vanished.
Jeri seemed puzzled by the pictures. Like this was the first time she’d seen them. Wait. Maybe she hadn’t seen the photos in her vision, but she’d only seen the guy when he was taking them.
He waited for her to respond so he could key off her answer.
Jeri finally found her voice. “No. That’s not the woman in my vision.”
Okay, enough was enough. What was she suggesting? That the guy had killed again. If he had, Nick would have surely heard about it. “Jeri, I’m not gonna—”
She broke into his impending rant. “I can’t stay here.”
No, she couldn’t. Not if someone with such a sick mind would play with her like that. She needed to be somewhere he could keep an eye on her, where he could make sure someone else kept an eye on her when he couldn’t.
“You’re right. You can’t—”
“I won’t stay with you.”
Nick wrapped his arms around her and pushed her head onto his shoulder. She was shaking so badly he thought they might lose their balance and tumble onto the floor.
“Shhh. Jeri, I’m right here. You’re okay. It’s gonna be all right.”
She shook her head in the hollow of his shoulder. “No… It’s…it’s…it’s never going to be all right ever again.”
She snorted hard, and Nick could feel her snot soak through the fabric of his shirt.
“I can’t be the one that sees things. I’m not strong enough. I don’t want this. I want to be normal.”
The normal ship had sailed for Jerilyn long ago.
She pushed him away from her and pointed a shaky finger at him. “This is all your fault.”
He sputtered his defense. “How is this my fault?”
“If you hadn’t come into the bar looking for me—”
“Whoa! Hold up. I didn’t send Sheldon Deville into the bar to mess with your mind. If it’s anybody’s fault, it’s his. Don’t put this on me. I am not responsible for your mental health.”
She squinted her eyes at him. “Are you saying I’m crazy?”
“I’m saying you have some issues.”
She adopted a fighting stance: mean glare, straightened shoulders, tight jaw. “Leave me alone.”
“I can’t.”
“Yes, you can.”
“Now that this guy has harassed you, I have to make sure you stay safe.”
“I already told you I won’t stay with you. Are you nuts? We’d kill each other.”
Well, he wouldn’t go that far. He had other thoughts about her that he feared were far more dangerous.
He waited a moment until he could manage a somewhat calm attitude. “You’re right. That would be a bad idea. I know a place where you can stay for a while, but you’ll have to pay me rent so I can pay the rent because this won’t be on the city’s dime.”
The fight seemed to leave her. Her eyebrows lifted. “Sounds kind of sketchy to me.”
“You’re scared to stay here. I’ve offered you a place to stay that has a security guard and an alarm system. Take it or leave it.”
Sure, he’d set people up there before. Nick had an arrangement with a man who managed rentals. If the guy had a property that was vacant, he would let Nick sublet it to people who needed to be off the radar for a while. Nick wasn’t sure the arrangement was okay with the property owners, and it sure as hell wasn’t in compliance with proper police procedure, but so far, the owners hadn’t caught on to the manager’s back door deals, and Nick’s superiors never knew the difference.
He shoved the photos back into the envelope and grabbed Deville’s tube from the table where he’d left it next to the photos. “Pack a bag. I’ll wait for you in the car.”
She’d emptied her trash into her dumpster when she had first gotten home, fussing and mumbling about the place stinking. There on top of the trash she’d thrown into her dumpster on the curb was a soda can. With any luck, it would have her saliva on it. He’d grabbed the extra plastic bag for the empty can.
When he’d gotten the crime scene tech to swab her hands and lift her prints, the swab had come back negative for accelerants. She’d let them ink a set of her fingerprints. Her prints hadn’t matched any they had lifted from Jane Doe’s crime scene. Nick hadn’t had a good enough reason to get a swab of her cheek. But he didn’t need to have her permission to test the soda can. It was in the trash on the curb, on public property. Fair game.
Nick waited for her suspicion to show, but there wasn’t a hint of it in her face. He left her apartment, glancing over his shoulder every few feet until he was at the curb. After he tossed the envelope and the tube onto the back seat of his car, he managed to get the can inside the bag without touching it before Jeri exited her apartment.
He’d have to come clean with Ed about where he’d gotten it and how. There was no other way to convince Ed to requisition a DNA test. Even if he did get the request through, it might take weeks to get an answer unless Ed put some budget money behind an urgent request. Then, the lab would question why this particular test was so special it warranted jumping the line.
He doubted her DNA would have any matching markers to the blood in the glass tube, but he would bank money on it having matching markers to Sheldon Deville.
Chapter Ten
Jeri drew in a deep breath as she stood in the middle of the living room, raised her shoulders and then dropped them. The apartment Nick had found for her was so much like the one she
had given up when she dropped out of Tulane. The guard at the front door and the alarm system would give her some security. The creep might find her again, but at least, he’d have to work at lot harder to shove pictures of dead women under her door again.
The place was already furnished. Not to her taste, but it would do. She guessed beggars couldn’t be choosers, which seemed kind of funny to her because she hadn’t exactly been begging. She had the money to rent an apartment in a secure building. Nick didn’t have to find one for her; she could have done that for herself. He had caught her in a vulnerable moment, and she’d only managed to put up a small fight.
If being there became a bit too claustrophobic, Jeri figured she could disappear. She had the means to do whatever she wanted, whenever she wanted. Maybe she’d go to Europe for a while.
She’d been so disgusted by the way she’d come by the money that she’d barely touched it. The resentment she’d experienced when she’d used some of her inheritance to pay off the balance left over on her tuition after her scholarships had left a sour taste in her mouth. The man she’d always believed was her father had insisted she use the inheritance she’d received from the woman she’d always believed was her aunt. She hadn’t wanted to use any of the money, but Lance Bowman wasn’t going to help her pay for med school if she didn’t go where he wanted her to go.
She glanced at Nick, who was standing at the side of the window, peeking from behind the curtains. He was probably scanning the street below for anyone who appeared suspicious. Nick seemed to be suspicious of everyone. He had been on edge all the way from her old apartment to this new place.
“Okay, so I guess I’ll get settled in, then.” Hint. Hint. You can go now.
He grunted but didn’t move away from the window.
Fine. Let him stand there.
She turned in a full circle and located the spot where she would place her collection. There was a set of shelves in varying lengths in an assortment of earth-tone colors mounted on one wall. Hadn’t that particular look been trendy ten years ago or more? The longest shelf looked big enough to hold her treasures.
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